Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

CONCExNTRATED FOODS 169sugar taken before the expected onset of fatiguepostponed or entirely inhibited the sensation."The hard-working lumbermen of Canada andMaine eat a very large quantity of sugar in the formof molasses. I have seen them add it to tea and toalmost everything they cook. Sugar has also been,found of much service upon polar expeditions."Many of our sportsmen, when going light, substitutesaccharin (saxin, crystallose) for sugar,thinking thereby to save weight and bulk. This is agrave error. It is true that saccharin has enormoussweetening power, and that moderate use of it on aaouting trip, in one's tea and coffee, will do no harm.But the point overlooked is that sugar is a concentrated source of energyT^easily and quickly assimilated,whereas saccharin produces no energy at all,being nothing but a coal-tar drug. It is the grapesugar in raisins, for example, that makes them sostimulating.Sir Ernest Shackleton, in outfitting his party fortheir recent antarctic expedition, made sugar figurelargely in the rations. On the previous exploringtrip he and his companions each took two or threelumps of sugar every two or three hours, and hesaid that ten minutes after eating it they couldfeel the heat going through their bodies.One at least of the nations engaged in the presentwar supplies its men in the trenches with a dailyration of ten ounces of sugar, which is over threetimes the allowance of sugar in the field ration ofour own service. "It has been found, however,"says Outing, "that this abundance of sweet not onlygives the soldier added muscular strength but increaseshis resistance to cold and fatigue, both physicaland nervous. The action of sugar is most effectivewhen dissolved in some hot liquid: it is especiallybeneficial taken in chocolate."Fri/its.—One fault of all the ready-made concentratedrations that I have seen was that they containedno acids. A fruit acid is needed, even in afood preparation that is to be used only for a dayor two, in order to correct the ultra-sweet or fatty